Alice Springs Youth Hub closure a 'kick in the teeth'

The Northern Territory Government is closing the Alice Springs Youth Hub and all of the organisations operating within the complex are being asked to move.

The manager of one of the tenants, Incite Arts, says she has been told the cost of repairs needed to fix the run-down buildings exceed the budget, so it is being shut down.

Virginia Heydon says although it has been offered an alternative location, her staff and clients do not want to move.

"It's not ideal, we deliver programs to people with a disability and it's on a first floor location and not everyone's comfortable with stairs and lifts and it's just not particularly conducive," she said.

The former coordinator of the youth hub says it is a perfect location for what it does for youth and families.

Matty Day says the Government is forgetting the project was set up for young people who were slipping through the cracks at school.

"These young people are not just accessing the one place, they're accessing a number of different places and they require a number of different services," he said.

"The old Anzac Hill High School, which became the youth hub, was the perfect place for it and we demonstrated that within the first two years of that project and I think this is a real kick in the teeth to Alice Springs."

The Children and Families Minister, John Elferink, says the Government needs to close the youth hub because it cannot afford to repair it.

Almost three years ago, the then-Labor government promised more than $1 million to upgrade the hub but the Country Liberals say the work was never done.

Mr Elferink says the not-for-profit groups, which have used the space rent-free, have to remember taxpayers are footing the bill.

He says the tenants may prefer to stay but the focus has to be on youths who are in strife in the community.

"If it becomes about the organisations rather than about the kids then I think we've got our priorities wrong and as far as I am concerned if we have got to spend a lot of money keeping a tired building up to scratch for some NGOs [non-government organisations] when there are much cheaper options, then we are failing our responsibilities to the community," he said.